Pencil Miles - 425 down, 575 to go

[bigus_dickus]

HAHA. Holy crap! Im sure after 1000 pages you'll have these fundamentals knocked into your brain Im trying a similar approach with environment concept doodles. Though im aiming at 100 pictures, not 1000 pages!

Cheers for the crits on my sketchbook. Appreciate it. Oh, and goodluck! Ill check back!

[walnut]

I'm liking those gesture drawings, i really do. You're starting to feel the flow aren't you? Might i suggest you start suggesting the ribcage and pelvis in your next exercises a bit more? You've got direction down, time to focus on volumes. If you manage to keep this up, you'll get the basics down pretty quickly, so: Ganbatte kudasai!

[Seage]

lmfao. You're craaazeh!! I really hope you get your goal. You're gonna be so badass by then, you may as well publish a book on it, haha. You'll be able to pull a pose from your memory with ease as well. woooo. Keep going!

Your form is already quite nice. And the villpuu approach is sexeh.

Btw, thats for stopping by my book earlier

[p sage]

The Plan: 1000 pages of gestures drawings. 50 down, 950 to go.
Goal: Massive improvement by page 1000.

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Thank yous
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Marian Rowling: Hey thank you for coming by, and your comments are indeed appreciated! Thanks again!

bigus_dickus: Yeah man, it's a set goal. It's good for you to have that goal. And thanks for the visit

walnut: Hey I really appreciate your vote of confidence there. I am feeling the "flow" (Vilppu's favorite word ) but I could stand to pound it into my brain a bit more. I'm flattered you think I could move on to "bracketing the form," as he says (ribcage/hips), but I think I'll go a few more until I really have the gesture stuff solidly.

Thanks for the visit! Your stuff is quite excellent!

Seage: Haha... well I'm glad you visited and commented. It's all about hard work, really... you know that, judging by the quality of your work.

Thanks, man.

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This set: 7 gesture pages | Using Vilppu's techniques
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Startin to turn these muthas out. I just realized I could have worried more about flow in these (after looking at them)... I tend to go straight for contours when i get to the legs.

The gestures seem to go much better when I don't worry about the exact form, just sort of get a general idea of proportion and measurement in my head, and "feel" my way through them. Oh well. A few of them came out good anyway. Gotta work harder.

[freakmod]

Hey, I am loving what you're doing here! Great goal, and loving your progress so far! Some of those latest gestures have a lot of fluidity to them. Keep it up - I'll be checking back later :]

[p sage]

The Plan: 1000 pages of gestures drawings. 54 down, 946 to go.
Goal: Massive improvement by page 1000.

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Thank yous
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freakmod: Thank you! I'll be looking forward to your return.

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This set: 4 gesture pages | Using Vilppu's techniques
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Okay these are the days they warn you about when you embark on something like this.

I feel like I wasn't quite doing the gestures "right," and by "right" I mean trying to avoid contours. I kept throwing leg contours in there, justifying them by thinking ... "well, there's tension right there."

Then I remembered how Vilppu did his... they just sort of flowed quickly... one line following another. Even the legs.

So I tried to go back and do them the right way. I even took the last one from page 51 and redid it over and over on 52 to try and get it.

I still don't think I've got it--page 53 and page 54 show I'm at least going in the right direction again, but I think I've taken many steps backward.

These four sheets go against my "bad drawings count," at least.

Tomorrow, life drawing session!

[Bill]

Hi,

It's impressive how much weight, volume, and expression is coming through in these exercises. I wish I'd know about this stuff a long time ago. Anyway, the value of what you're doing is evident. Goodstuff.

[armando]

The gestures look pretty good. A surprising amount of concepts go into doing gestures. To avoid the contours think about what Bridgman says in "life drawing"...
Lewis F. Day's "Pattern design" has some info on linear design, that one can be found on archive.org...

[p sage]

The Plan: 1000 pages of gestures drawings. 62 down, 938 to go.
Goal: Massive improvement by page 1000.

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Thank yous
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Bill: Wow. Awesome. Thank you for stopping by. The heavy hitters have landed in my humble thread. Coming from you that's a great encouragement. Thank you.

armando: First of all, I'm so freakin stoked that you stopped by my thread. I've seen your responses all around the site, and have learned a lot and been very very impressed by everything you've said.

The pendulum sounds like a great metaphor; and I've been thinking about getting Mattesi's book for a bit, now. When you speak of linear harmony, that sounds a lot like Vilppu's concept/tool of the transition lines or movement lines.

I'll absorb and study what you've posted here... and man, hat's off. Thanks a ton.

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This set: 8 gesture pages | Using Vilppu's techniques
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LIFEDRAWING! Finally joined a Saturday morning sketch group at the university... 5 bucks for 3 hours... a freakin steal. The model was great, too.

It was a long pose, but they had said that as soon as the semester starts, they'll have two models... a long pose and a gesture each Saturday. Good enough. I just did the gestures anyway, and felt that by the third page, I was feeling the pose better.

I switched around a lot in the last hour to try and capture more positions. I think the last position was the best and easiest to read.

Of course, the rest of the stuff is posemaniacs.

[arttorney]

In posts 8 and 11 you were doing a lot of hairy tentative lines and I could see by post 17 you had noted it was due to a hesitancy about how you identified the action line(s) and you went back for another look at your book. Then in post 29 and the first set on this page you were showing a lot of confidence and it was really working. Your last couple of sets seem to be getting kind of hairy again. Hang onto whatever insight you had going a couple of days ago. It was working.

[FiftyFortunes]

You're studies are looking brilliant. They're defining the figure/flow so much more. How many Pencil Miles have you travelled thus far ?

[p sage]

The Plan: 1000 pages of gestures drawings. 68 down, 932 to go.
Goal: Massive improvement by page 1000.

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Thank yous
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arttorney: I've seen your name around for about a year and am glad you hit my thread. You're right about the line quality; never should have to go back over lines... I should be able to put down the line I meant to put down first.

That said, I am trying to (sometimes) do transition lines between one and another to get a sense of movement. This is an example:



Vilppu's drawing shows transitions between lines... something I'm trying to achieve.

Thanks for your crit! I definitely need to clean up my pencil work.

Valve: Wow. We ought to just start a sketch group, eh? LOL. Anyway thanks for the encouragement. I'm starting to work through the difficulties, and I will keep plugging away.

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This set: 6 gesture pages | Using Vilppu's techniques
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All right. I did learn something tonight. Once again, I went back to the well, and checked Vilppu. He reiterates that we're trying to capture movement and that each line should move the eye. That had confused me a bit earlier, in that sometimes, an outline just starts out of the blue. For instance, you don't just start a gesture by referencing another line, because there aren't any other lines yet!

But then what armando said started yesterday started to make more sense. The areas where the body feel tension are in rhythm with each other... aka the traps on one side--if they are stretched--counterbalance the stretch on the other side of the body in the hips.

Then I noticed... hey... the line from one leads into the other. Cool!

So then it made me realize that all lines in a gesture drawing (at least in the Vilppu method) reference other lines... or "lead into" other lines.

Yes, as I had discovered, some lines don't start out referencing other lines. But these lines seem to always occur where there is tension, and the other "flow" lines will flow out of THEM.

It all sounds very clinical and calculated, and I'm trying to take a more "wholistic" view of it (read: Right Brained) but I think this is the right approach. By the end of these, I think I was back on the right path. More steps back before steps forward.

[Karein]

Fabulous idea and way to keep motivated. Good luck with your challenge, you will be better off at the end of it. I can already see improvement, and I shall stop in every now and again to see how your progress

[Rolo]

Hey, massive improvement from what I've seen. I have a question though, this has always confused me a bit.

what are gesture lines exactly? Do we practice them to understand the human movement?

And why are they made up so simple? Wouldn't you lose an understanding of the human form... or wait.. the gestures are a simplicity of the form?

where can I find this stuff? And will it help me? I'd very much like to learn about this. I've seen this stuff on sketchbooks since I began here on CA.

btw, when I draw I sometimes can't think of any gestures... or any human position how can I keep on thinking of new ones?
Posemaniacs...?

if I remember that was a good source.

btw, awesome stuff! Good pace too!!

[kikindaface]

Yo dude ! You have some nice gesture drawings ! Maybe you're breaking your lines too much, some of your poses aren't really fluid, so you should make less but longer lines, to really capture the poses quickly and efficiently ! I also noticed that the faster i draw the pose the more it looks dynamic ! Anyway, i'll come back ! and dont forget to study other stuff, like anatomy , and to improve your drawing skills by doin a lot of life drawing ! Keep it up !

[Kenny_Callicutt]

Hey man, thanks for dropping in my SB. Im actually taking classes with Vilppu right now. ITs fucking amazing. This is great stuff good studies... the guy is an awesome awesome teacher. Unfortuantely hes pretty hard of hearing so you have to yell at him but hes really helping me out.

In the class he has us do alot of this in a light h pencil and then take a conte and go over it with the forms and rolling over the form type stuff.

I like your 1000 pages of gestures but I think youd get more out of them if you threw the simple cylnders and cubes on top to gesture out the masses as well.

[p sage]

The Plan: 1000 pages of gestures drawings. 75 down, 925 to go.
Goal: Massive improvement by page 1000.

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Thank yous
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Karein: Hey, thank you It's a quantified goal. Hopefully that keeps me working.

Rolo: Gesture "lines" aren't really lines. It's more wholistic (meaning "the whole thing") than that. I could just as easily use a smudge to do the gesture, or scribbles. A gesture is more or less the "action" of the pose.

You can look for Glenn Vilppu's stuff, as it is excellent. There are also other books on Amazon about gesture. I purchased a few of Vilppu's DVDs at this site. They're kind of expensive, but well worth it.

Good luck!

Walid D: Wow. Thank you for stopping by and for the crit! I do agree that the gestures need more flow, and that I should be drawing them faster.

I tried to do more of that in the following set of drawings, with mixed results. I'm finding, however, that the "flow" is still missing to a certain extent. So I started another page of gestures (not scanned in yet) that I'll put up tomorrow that are starting to "feel" better. I'm going to reaaaallly try to emulate what Vilppu shows from now on.

And yep; just went to my first life drawing session in a while last Saturday... and anatomy is next on the block.

Thanks so much for checking my book!

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This set: 7 gesture pages | Using Vilppu's techniques
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Damn. A lot of these feel like "treading water." They're important to do, because if I don't, I'll lose touch with the process of doing them.

Know what I'm saying? But at the same time, not much improvement. In fact, it looks like I inadvertently went back to the kind of "drawings" I was doing about 20 sheets ago. Those may be nice, but they don't have the movement I'm needing.

I did, as mentioned above to Walid D, however begin a new page after scanning these, and it feels a bit better... so maybe I can sleep

SCHOOL STARTED... hopefully will still have time every day for these.

[p sage]

Hey man, thanks for dropping in my SB. Im actually taking classes with Vilppu right now. ITs fucking amazing. This is great stuff good studies... the guy is an awesome awesome teacher. Unfortuantely hes pretty hard of hearing so you have to yell at him but hes really helping me out.

In the class he has us do alot of this in a light h pencil and then take a conte and go over it with the forms and rolling over the form type stuff.

I like your 1000 pages of gestures but I think youd get more out of them if you threw the simple cylnders and cubes on top to gesture out the masses as well.

Whoa. Sorry. Missed you by THAT much

Hey thanks. That's so freakin awesome that you're studying with the man himself. Yeah... as soon as I feel I've got the FLOW going... I think the cylinders will happen. Just want to make sure I have that locked in.

Is "flow" like Vilppu's favorite word or something?

I really like that guy. Gotta meet him someday.

Thanks!

[jigje]

I like your energy p sage. You'll be a great artist and everyone will say it's natural talent. Keep up the great hard work.

[Prolixite]

Hi p sage

Great stuff you have going on here! One thing i can suggest is not to focus too much on one aspect while learning to draw (in this case movement/balance). Other elements will help you understand much better the theory behind movement and balance, anatomy is one of them.

I always tell people to learn 3 point perspective asap, it's going to be one of your most useful tool, and it's what makes the difference between a good and a clumsy illustration: if perspective is off, no matter how long you render, you'll produce something awkward. Perspective is the anatomy of a drawing: get it wrong and everything else fails. And there is perspective drawing everywhere: even in a portrait.

Keep up the movement studies though, it's pretty good! And please note that these are very personnal suggestions, i am still learning myself so it's worth what it's worth

Take care, and see you around!

[monotony]

great dedication you're showing!
I'm sure these will bring you a LOT further. really inspirational.
However don't forget that it's all supposed to be fun, so throw in some random sketches you just enjoy drawing once in a while, to not have it all feel like work. nonsense is really good sometimes.
But I'm really looking forward to where you will go from here!

[p sage]

The Plan: 1000 pages of gestures drawings. 81 down, 919 to go.
Goal: Massive improvement by page 1000.

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Thank yous
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jigje: Thank you for the vote of confidence May you continue on your journey to improvement too.

Prolixite: Thank you for your in-depth assessment. I will take your suggestions and think about them thoroughly.

monotony: Hey, thank you so much. I'm always flattered when someone of your caliber gives me a heads up in my SB. And thank you for the "permission," as it were, to do some fun type drawings. I want to take the time to do some of those, but would probably post them in the critique center.

Thanks again, and keep watching the 'Boosh!

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This set: 6 gesture pages | Using Vilppu's techniques
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Slowly breaking out of the habit. I discovered something late in tonight's session...

1) I'm looking too much at the center-line on the chest of both the male and female models in Posemaniacs. I realize that this isn't necessarily the correct thing to do.

2) I'm stopping my "flow" lines at the boundaries between forms--e.g., the boundary of the waist, between the upper torso and the hips.

From these two things, I realized that this wasn't the right way to get the action. Vilppu's lines flowed through the figure no matter what barrier was there; if something changed direction dramatically (like a knee) the flow line was still very gradual, and curved.

Then I thought some more about it. What would water in a river flow like if the one bank ran north-south on a perfectly straight line, and then it made a perfect 90 degree turn. Would the water flow straight to the wall, and then flow straight to the left?

No... the flow would still be gradual.

That's what broke me out of the idea that I should be stopping at the boundaries, like the waist, or the iliac crests, or the pit of the neck, or the knees.

Now I know what to do (hopefully!)... but only a few of the gestures on the last couple of pages sort of "look" like that. It's a hard habit to break--seeing the centerline of the pose in Posemaniacs, and not stopping at the boundaries.

I think REALLY concentrating on feeling the gesture will help break my bad habits. Wish me luck.

[shamandalie]

Hey there, thanks for dropping by my sketchie. very goal orientated i see! I like the expressive gestures you have here. Great practice!

Keep it going, you'll definitely improve!

[NicG]

Thanks for checking out my skechbook!

1000 pages, wow I'm such a slacker! You've inspired me to work more gestures. Nice work!

[p sage]

The Plan: 1000 pages of gestures drawings. 87 down, 913 to go.
Goal: Massive improvement by page 1000.

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Thank yous
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shamandalie: Thank you!

NicG: Glad I could help... if only, eh?

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This set: 6 gesture pages | Using Vilppu's techniques
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It's hard to break old habits, but I started breaking through near the end of the session.

I find the gestures look a little messier than they should (I think) sometimes... but that's not a big deal. The big deal is ignoring the "pieces" of the body, and trying to find the flow between the tense areas of the body. I think (in essence) that's how you find the action drawing.

When I did get it, I added little arrows to the transition lines inside the gestures to show the flow. I think (with more practice and concentration) I should be able to knock these out quickly.

[mariusz]

Hi!

Thanks for stoping by in my SB.

Try to use other media than pencil drawing shape directions, for example brush and ink, marker etc

cheers

[Nicky S]

nice work, it's inspiring to see such devotion to a single goal. ^^

Your gesture drawings are getting better and better, makes me want to take on some extra gesture studying aswell.^^

Keep it up!

[Rolo]

thanks man! I checked his site, he lives in CA! Damn! I wanted some classes!!
I'll be searching the web for his stuff and try to learn from it when I can. I'm not sure I'll be able today! But, thanks, and will do. Gesture drawings will allow me to understand why my figures are in that certain position... it's their action.

Thanks! Hope that school does not stop you. I'm not so positive about that when it comes to me. When school starts who knows if I'll have time to do anything but school work : (

[p sage]

The Plan: 1000 pages of gestures drawings. 92 down, 908 to go.
Goal: Massive improvement by page 1000.

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mariusz: Hello! I certainly think that's a good idea. Thanks for the suggestion!

Nicky S: Hey, thank you for the encouragement. I hope to stick through the next 900 or so more

Rolo: Yeah man... school is good, though. I have a job in this economy because of school. I'll be starting grad school (Masters program) in the spring... and that makes it even harder to fire me. LOL.

Keep working on your stuff too, man! No excuses!

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This set: 5 gesture pages | Using Vilppu's techniques
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All right! Quality over quantity today. (Somehow 5 pages doesn't feel like a lot)... but hang on... I am feeling like I'm really getting it. The gestures are truly starting to flow... so much so that I started doing the cross contours again on some of them.

This is due (in part) to going back to Vilppu one more time, and watching how he does gestures. I picked up a couple of tips that help

1) If the pose is static, there isn't a lot of flow. What he does in this case is just draw the cross contours, and then draw the parts of the figure that DO have flow.

That was a big deal. It made it so I avoided really static poses on Posemaniacs.

2) You don't have to do the poses quickly... when you hit a part that has a lot of "tension" slow down, and really try to "feel" it as you're going through. And from there, just try to feel a flow between where you are and the next part that's feeling tension.

Overall, the drawings are a bit messy--but so are Vilppu's. I look forward to honing this technique (now that I understand it) by getting better at measuring (proportions) and at the cross contours themselves.

Gimme a month, and I'll be doing a full gesture drawing with cross contours in 30 seconds...

[B-Man]

Hey there P!
You just keep drawing these lose figures, when we gonna se some illustrations? maybe a color study of some sweet ladys or a enviro?
Cheers bud!